


Of Sides, Plans, Gardens, and Prayers

by EdnaV



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Comfort, Crisis of Faith, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Internal Conflict, M/M, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 18:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19774024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdnaV/pseuds/EdnaV
Summary: As soon as they're returned to Earth after their respective trials in Hell and in Heaven, Aziraphale and Crowley worry about each other's safety. Is it possible that the Ineffable Plan involves an angel who blasphemes and a demon who thanks God Herself? Well, it's Ineffable...Also: what happened on the night between Saturday and Sunday, and why Aziraphale asks Beelzebub for a rubber duck.





	Of Sides, Plans, Gardens, and Prayers

**Author's Note:**

> So: more Ineffable Husbands. Or at least Ineffable Fiancés. 
> 
> I can't stop feeling all the feelings, I'm soft, etc.
> 
> By the way, [this is the statue in Crowley's Flat](https://www.instagram.com/p/BfNWiUCFBN1/). An angel and a demon "fighting" each other.

Aziraphale opened his eyes. He was back in Crowley's apartment. _They fell for it_ , he thought, with a sigh of relief. He was almost breathing again when he suddenly felt something stuck in his throat. _Crowley_.

 _They haven't noticed the switch_ , he reasoned, _or I wouldn't be here_. But their plan still had too many parts that could have gone - what was that phrase that Crowley had used, that time? - _pear-shaped_.

That time. When Crowley had asked him for some Holy Water, “for insurance”, and Aziraphale had almost cut their ties. It had just turned out that the demon had been right - a phrase that seven days ago Aziraphale wouldn't have been able to conceive. Even worse: the events had proved that Crowley had been right _because_ he was a demon, a Satanic being that spent his life not trusting anyone; and Aziraphale had almost caused the end of the world because he had put his faith in his Angelic superiors, as it was in the natural order of things.

He wouldn't have made that mistake again. Instead, he had chosen to believe in Crowley and his theory about _their own side_ , and in Agnes Nutter's prophecy: _ye must choofe your faces wisely, for soon enouff ye will be playing with fyre_. The latter seemed to haveworked, at least as far as his survival was concerned. But his scrape with Hellfire was the only part of their plan which had a basis in Agnes Nutter's words: when it came to Crowley's fate, he was in a dark that made Hell look like a tropical beach, one in which he hadn't got even the tiniest candle to shine a light. He had to trust Crowley and their plan.

They had discussed the prophecy on the bus from Tadfield. For the first time, they had been sitting next to each other - the relief of not hiding anymore had been only mildly tempered by the problem of finding enough space to fit Crowley's legs. Somewhere near High Wycombe they had been sure that _fyre_ meant _Hellfire_ , more precisely some Hellfire that Aziraphale's Head Office was going to use on him. The meaning of _choofe your faces wisely_ followed: switching their appearances would've allowed him to avoid the fire. But that left Crowley at the mercy of Heaven, an article which was in short supply of late. Aziraphale had tried to find a way around it, but Crowley had spent the rest of the journey making a fuss over what would've happened to _him_ instead. _My side will try to do the same to me, Angel. Which mean they're going to take you to a terrible place. You should take someone else's face, not mine. The owner of the Italian restaurant on Old Compton Street? I'll arrange a small accident, nothing serious..._ Aziraphale had managed to convince him for good only on the ouskirts of London: if Crowley was right, they needed to fool Hell as much as they needed to fool Heaven. And if Crowley's assessment of Hell's imagination - or lack thereof - was also right, Beelzebub was bound to do what Gabriel was going to do, just using Holy Water instead of Hellfire.

They had laid down the details of their plan in Crowley's flat. Occasionally - that is, every three minutes - Crowley had checked that neither Hell nor Heaven was spying on them. He had stopped just in time to avoid Aziraphale a bad case of nerves. _Splash some cold water over your face, Angel_ , he had told him. Aziraphale had followed his instruction. 

The bathroom looked exactly like the rest of Crowley's flat: dark and by any means impractical - the kind of design that estate agents describe with words like _boutique_. But then Aziraphale had noticed something on the shelf. Two rubber ducks. One had demon's horns. The other had _an angel's halo_. He had started laughing, overwhelmed by a pure joy like he had never felt before. He had spread his wings, almost knocking down that ghastly statue of... _let's forget about that statue_ , he thought. Crowley had joined in the laugh, then he had guided him to the bed and tucked him in. They had spent a few hours lying side by side. _Side by side._ The words _“our own side”_ , echoed in Aziraphale's mind. He had never realised how clever - wise, even - Crowley was. And what a pleasure it was just being next to him. If he were honest with himself, he had never realised how much he loved Crowley.

They had switched their bodies before dawn. When he had tried to replicate Crowley's swagger, Aziraphale had been surprised by how much he knew every inch of its continuous oscillation. Crowley's attempts to stand still and not glare at anything that wasn't Aziraphale had moved him. But both of them had been painfully aware that their impressions were far from perfect. 

Apparently, though, they had been close enough. Both Heaven and Hell had taken them at (literally) face value, at least when it came to the kidnapping part. Aziraphale had panicked for a moment: watching Uriel and Sandalphon dragging Crowley away had made him sick to his stomach. He was almost grateful for the hit in the head that had knocked him unconscious. 

So, just as they had expected, Hell had taken him to a particularly nasty room. The worst thing had been to realise that, for almost as far as they could remember, Crowley had been convinced that he actually belonged there. Those flickering cold lights, that cacophonic buzzing, that untidy general sloppiness: it was almost unbearable. But if Crowley had dealt with it since his Fall, some part of Aziraphale wanted to share that too. It wouldn't have been fair otherwise. _Their own side_ was - as humans were fond of saying - _in good times and in bad_. And he would have never again complained about Heaven's hoverboards - never, ever, not even _hardly ever_. 

He looked at his watch: Crowley's wristwatch, around Crowley's wrist, which was currently Aziraphale's own wrist. 3:55pm. The meeting was set for 4:30pm in Tavistock Square. A taxi should've taken him there in twenty minutes, but Aziraphale didn't see the point of staying in bed, regardless of how much Crowley extolled the virtues of sleep. He felt as if he had escaped a whirlwind of Hellfire just to find that there was a full-blown tornado of it just out of the corner of his eyes.

They had sent him back perfectly dressed. The clothes in which they had kidnapped him weren't even slightly creased. _This is a new jacket, I'd hate to ruin it, do you mind if I take it off?_ It sounded like something that Crowley could've said. At least, Aziraphale had hoped so. Maybe it was something that only he would've said: Crowley didn't care for his clothes - always dressed to the latest fashion, of course, but with those legs and that bearing he would've looked stunning regardless, and he knew it all too well. Or it was something that they both could've said. _We're not that different, you and I_ , Crowley had repeated to him over and over again. Aziraphale had always replied that he had never Fallen, but he wasn't so sure about that anymore. He had been to Hell, after all.

He resolved to put his mind to the matter at hand. He got up, trying to deal with those endless legs and arms as well as he could. Looking at himself in the mirror gave him a pang of worry. He wondered where Crowley was. Nobody had come for him so far, but that didn't mean that Crowley was safe; even if he had survived Hellfire, Gabriel might have come up with some other form of vengeance. _No use thinking about it, stick to the plan,_ he reminded himself. He left the flat, not before softly caressing a few leaves of those beautiful houseplants, and he hailed a black cab. As expected, he was in Tavistock Square by twenty past four. He sat on the bench in the middle of the garden, and waited. He thought that had always been good at waiting: She wouldn't have put him in charge of guarding the Tree otherwise. And he had been waiting for Crowley for years on end - for centuries, even millennia - though he had never fully realised it.

**oOoOo**

Crowley opened his eyes. He was in the bookshop. The Heavenly Hosts had been polite enough to try to dump him in the chair, but not polite enough to actually aim: he was sprawling on the floor in a very uncomfortable position. He got up, struggling with the weight of a body that he knew in every detail, but that had never been his own. He cracked his neck - well, Aziraphale's neck - and tidied up his clothes. He checked if he had to miracle away some stain from the coat, smiling at the thought of how stubbornly Aziraphale loved that coat.

 _Aziraphale._ He remembered the last thing he had seen as the angels were slamming the door of the van: someone had hit Aziraphale on the head with a crowbar. Probably Hastur, always so subtle. Bastard. He had seen his body collapse on the path. _They've taken him to Hell. Just as I thought. And I allowed him to go there. I've always kept an eye on him, got him out of trouble - he always got himself into some trouble, that silly angel - and this time I was detained. Literally._

He looked at his wrist - _No, Aziraphale's got his fob watch_. He smiled again at the thought of his angel, then he saw the time. 4:25pm. He had to run.

He had spent what felt like an eternity watching Gabriel's underlings filling in forms. When they had presented him the contract for his new position as “we'll try to forget that any of this happened, don't you dare show your face around here before the End of Days”, he had been so nervous that he had almost signed his own name. Thank - well, thank Whoever there was to thank - Aziraphale had remembered to show him his sigil.

The plan had worked. Had it? He was alive and free. So far. But Agnes Nutter's prophecy talked only about _fyre_ , not about Holy Water. That bit was something the two of them had inferred the night before, while they were sitting finally next to each other on the bus, so close that Crowley had almost kicked Aziraphale's shins a dozen times. They had planned how to go against Heaven and Hell in one night, on a bus from Oxfordshire. Crowley had been the one who suggested that Hell's revenge was going to involve a bathtub full of Holy Water. But that meant that, if Beezebub had decided to imprison Aziraphale in the deepest pit of Hell instead, Crowley might as well have been the one who had locked the cell door. He shuddered. Then he regained his composure, or at least part of it, and dashed out of the bookshop. _Tell me that he's safe. Please, G... - oh, what the H... - please, keep him safe. Someone. Anyone._

There will always be a taxi ready to pick you up in Soho, as long as you don't need one. Crowley needed one, desperately. It took him a full five minutes to see a black cab, whose passengers felt strangely compelled to get out and leave their place to that curious gentleman with elegantly manicured hands, white hair that looked like a halo, and the stare of a snake that was about to strike at their jugular.

It was 4:30pm. Late. And there was nothing he could do, except compelling the cabby to drive at a decent speed - 90 miles per hour at least, please. But it still took time. Too much time.

 _Funny thing, time_ , Crowley thought. They had tiptoed around each other for millennia, and suddenly the night before they hadn't had enough time. They had put together that half-baked plan. ( _Half-baked. For an angelic gourmet. Funny choice of words._ ) Crowley had tried to make Aziraphale feel at home. Another funny thing: Crowley had never thought of his flat as his home, but now that Aziraphale was there, it suddenly was. The angel had praised his plants: _such a lush garden, indeed, my dear._ Then he had smiled, as if he were remembering another Garden, but he hadn't said anything more than that. He hadn't commented on that statue either, thank Satan. The rubber ducks had cheered him up almost as much as Crowley had hoped. The angel had refused to sleep, protesting something along the lines of _"virtue is ever-vigilant"_. But he had rested a bit in his bed. Or was it _their_ bed, now? They had always been at each other's side, as far as Crowley was concerned, but in six millennia they had never shared a bed. _Funny thing, that, too._

At dawn, the plan had been put into motion. They had exchanged their bodies. He had gone to check the bookshop. After two centuries of trying to avoid Aziraphale's gaze in embarrassing moments, he knew every shelf, every chair, every book, every hat that had been left behind by some absent-minded customer. Then, the meeting in St. James' Park. And then everything was almost a blur. His _extraordinary rendition_ , as Gabriel had called it. Whenever humans had come up with that kind of euphemisms, Crowley had always gotten a commendation by pretending that they were his own invention. This time he had gotten only the satisfaction to scare the Archangel fucking Gabriel. A minor satisfaction. Definitely not much, when he considered that they were not trying to hurt him - which was fair game, in a way: angels, demon - but they were trying to hurt _Aziraphale_.

_Please, let him be safe. Whoever._

**oOoOo**

Aziraphale looked at Crowley's watch. 4:35pm. _Something's happened to him. Something bad. Something that can't be undone._

A thought flashed through Aziraphale's mind. He tried to hold it back - it was a thought that was tantamount to falling. His efforts lasted less than a second: if he had to spend the rest of his eternity on his own, he might've as well say it out loud: _If he's not coming back, She can go to Hell._

There. He had said it. Six millennia of angelic adoration of the Ineffable Plan turned into a rant. _I mean it. She can take Her Plan and stuff it up Her Divine Nose. He has to come back safe. If She tries to take Crowley from me, I'm not going to be Ineffable, for sure._

He checked again. 4:37pm. _I'm going to give You three minutes. If he's not with me by twenty to five, we're through, You and I. And I don't care if You always win that Ineffable Game of Yours. I'm not playing._

**oOoOo**

The taxi was as slow as a snail. _Brother Snail_ , as Aziraphale used to say to Young Warlock. Crowley would've given anything to see those fake teeth again. _Please. I need to see him. Now. Is it too much to ask for something more than eighty miles per hour?_

Russell Square. As usual, the tourists were looking for the British Museum and not at the traffic lights. _Is Anyone punishing me for planning the elevators of that station? Can't They wait until tomorrow?_

**oOoOo**

4:39pm. _I swear to You. Return him to me. Or else. Don't let him get hurt. He doesn't deserve it, and You know it. You want to test me? Fine, let's do it. But not him. I beg You._

**oOoOo**

Crowley forgot once again that his legs were slightly shorter than usual, and he almost fell out of the taxi. He looked for the bench in the garden.

Aziphale was there. He was sitting more rigidly than usual, and he was looking at something on his knees. But he was there. Safe. Crowley let out a sigh of relief. Then he said out loud something strange - something that he hadn't said in way more than six thousand years, something that he couldn't believe to be even allowed to think.

_Thank God._

He realised he had pronounced those two words only after saying them. For a moment, he was terrified, as if She were about to smite him. She didn't.

Crowley run as fast as those silly short legs and that silly, adorable, tight vest allowed him. Aziraphale's eyes were turned down. He was staring at his hands, perfectly still. _Is he praying? He must be. He's an Angel that has never Fallen. Maybe that's why She hasn't struck me down - he asked Her not to. Maybe She listens to him. He asks Her nicely, and She listens. Go figure, Ineffable and all that. I've never been that graceful, even before Sauntering Vaguely Downwards._ He slouched down on the bench next to his angel and nudged him softly. He didn't want to interrupt anything important that was going on in Aziraphale's mind, but he couldn't bear not to see his eyes, even for just a moment.

It was 4:40pm. Twenty minutes to five.

For a whole second, Aziraphale thought that She had an fairly Ineffable sense of humour. Then he just smiled at Crowley.

Crowley considered how Heaven was slightly tidier version of Hell, but - as long as his angel was at his side - any garden was going to be better than the Garden of Eden. He smiled.

**oOoOo**

Somewhere in another Garden - possibly Everywhere, or Actually Nowhere - She was on Her Own Side. She smiled all the time. Everything was going according to Her Plan.

_**The end** _

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I hope you liked it. <3 
> 
> About the locations:  
> 1) I'm almost sure that when Aziraphale-as-Crowley looks at the Bentley, he's at the Neo Bankside complex. Anyway: I've used the Tate Modern as a reference to calculate how long a taxi journey to Tavistock Square takes (thank the Ineffable Plan for Google Maps). If anyone has better information, let me know!  
> 2) Aziraphale's bookshop should be at the SE corner of Frith Street and Romilly Street. Again, thank Whoever for Google Maps and Street View.
> 
> And I think it's a fair assumption that Aziraphale likes Gilbert & Sullivan.


End file.
